December 19, 2010

We started our day with a great breakfast:

then strolled a little bit down the river

until we reached a great place to cool off:

I tried a bit of fishing again, with no luck, before I joined the others. We had no goal or plan for the morning, we just existed and enjoyed each others company while regulating our temperature by moving in and out of the very comfortable water, which must have held around 24 degrees C (75 F).

We were just by a side stream with a waterfall. Dauro told us that in this very lush area there were 20 times more streams/creeks/rivers than people. 3000 inhabitants, 5 rivers and a total of 60 000 distinct waterways. I was lazy and didn´t want to sweat in the jungle, so at first I stayed by the river. After all, I have seen many waterfalls in Norway and the stream didn´t look very promising

However, Helene insisted after having returned, and I reluctantly followed the small stream into the forest together with Adrian. Wow, the waterfall was a paradise in the paradise

with a natural swimming pool at its base

Natural massage:

Warning, Gwen, insects coming up!

These caterpillars were holding their annual meeting on a tree:

while this guy was observing from a distance and taking the minutes:

We returned and were served another great meal. Mariana was very proud when we were served fish fingers made from the fish she caught yesterday

After lunch we relaxed on the great covered patio

Dauro has worked for many years as a free-lance journalist and he told us the story of how he had gotten in touch with an environemntalist through the net. the environmentalist had told him about a phosphate mine project in this area. A joint venture project where the Norwegian company Yara was involved wanted to make a huge day mine to extract phosphate here and had been given the permission by local authorities to destroy large areas of otherwise protected atlantic rain forest.

Dauro had gotten the idea of contacting Norwegian journalists about this. He used his contact net and Helene was amongst those who resent his message to Norwegian journalists. One of them got very interested and came over to Brasil to write about this. He had stayed here at Fernando and Regina´s poussada.

You can read his article here (Norwegian). Here are the English, French and Spanish Google translations.

Just a few weeks after the article was published in Norway Yara pulled out of the project. The company who bought the project now seems to be giving up on making a mine after having met a lot of resistance.

Viktor played the saxophone before we left

We were all sorry to have to leave this fantastic place, but our time in paradise was over. It was time to head back to Florianopolis and civilization. Adrian commented that next time we should stay here for a week. We all fully agreed.

Tomorrow will be our last day in Brazil, time flies too fast.

Eirik

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